Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your business is say no to certain hires. Even if they have everything else you need, if they don’t fit the culture or have the right attitude, they’ll never thrive in your organization. As we head into the final run-in for this Premier League season, Liverpool are the clear favorites to win the title. That fact pains me beyond belief. I’m a lifelong Manchester United supporter, and we are born and bred to cheer for a Liverpool loss almost as much as a United win. To make matters even worse, this title would allow Liverpool to equal United’s 20 league title record. Meanwhile, United have struggled to get close to the top half of the table all season. Both teams are in this position for a very basic business reason: the quality of their recruitment. Liverpool brought in players with not just the talent but the attitude to succeed, and that put them in a position to win. United, on the other hand, are learning a painful lesson: in every business in every industry, the culture fit is as important as quality. Hiring Salahs Over Ronaldos For more than a decade, United have bought players haphazardly, taking little account of where they fit into the side, let alone how they fit into the team culture. Liverpool have instead brought in players and managers with a focus on their alignment with the club’s culture. Nothing epitomizes the gap in recruitment quite like the two outstanding all-stars who played for those teams at that time: Mohamed Salah for Liverpool and Cristiano Ronaldo for United. On the surface, you’d probably bite someone’s arm off to have either of these players in their prime (or just past it). Yet their effect on their teams couldn’t be more different. Salah has given the majority of his career to Liverpool, bringing the team titles and helping through its low points. He makes a point of making his teammates better. Ronaldo’s return to United did the exact opposite. Whenever Ronaldo played, he shut out the other attackers, demanding all play go through him. Even as he got his goals, the team suffered. It ended up costing their manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, his position. Adding insult to injury, before he left, Ronaldo made a point of insulting the whole team. Their quality may be similar, but if you wanted to win a title, it’s clear who would actually strengthen your team. Hire for Fit United have made a habit in recent years of buying players with every quality to succeed except the right attitude: Paul Pogba, Jadon Sancho, and even Angel Di Maria at the time of his signing. Over and over, we’ve failed to learn the art of saying no. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your business is say no to certain hires. Even if they have everything else you need, if they don’t fit the culture or have the right attitude, they’ll never thrive in your organization—and they may hold everyone else back. As I put it in my book, The Soccer of Success, “A team is only as good as its worst attitude.” That means that even a great salesperson will end up costing you more if they bring everyone else down. This is why a business’s number one priority when hiring should always be fit. Skills can be taught; attitude is harder to shift. If you place that priority first, you’re far more likely to see people integrate successfully and stick around. If not, you’ll end up with a disruptive locker room full of prima donnas who fail to ever progress. This is why Liverpool will continue to build on their success, even after Salah leaves, while United will have to clear out their whole team again after this season. Liverpool have recruited a group of players who believe in the project. United simply haven’t. And that’s going to make all the difference for their potential going forward. Check out my website. Editorial StandardsForbes Accolades